Abstract
In this chapter we investigate the relationship between girls and feminism as a lens for interpreting gendered relations of power and authority that define political participation within social movements in Italy. Starting from our dual position as researchers and activists, we focus on semi-structured interviews with girls working in occupied and self-managed spaces, to understand which roads they follow to negotiate different forms of authority, and whether feminist reflections find space on those paths.
By reconstructing the genealogy of the feminists’ thoughts—capable of challenging the modern conception of power, and therefore also that of authority—we aim at highlighting their echoes within the girls’ discourses and practices. In doing so, this chapter offers an understanding on how the girls’ gaze on the world can build new practices and new perceptions of the exercise of power and authority.
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Notes
- 1.
Cossutta and Mainardi , “La Jeune Fille può partecipare?.”
- 2.
Bernini , “Intervento.”
- 3.
See Bonomi Romagnoli, Irriverenti e libere.
- 4.
Busi and De Simoni, “Soggettività insolventi.”
- 5.
For more on this topic see Wulff , Bernstein and Taylor , “New Theoretical Directions.”
- 6.
Arruzza and Cirillo , Storia delle storie del femminismo.
- 7.
Report of the panel “Sexism in the Movements.” The feminist plan against men’s violence produced by Non Una di Meno is also available online. See “Feminist Plan.”
- 8.
In these five interviews, the focus has been placed on politics, authority and feminism. They are part of ten interviews with girls conducted in recent years on political participation and gender issues (some results are published in Cossutta and Mainardi, “La Jeune Fille può partecipare?”). Eight girls are involved in the whole research project; two of them have been interviewed twice over time in order to introduce a longitudinal perspective to the analysis and see changes through time.
- 9.
All interviews have been transcribed and anonymized.
- 10.
Tiqqun, Raw Materials, 103.
- 11.
Weber, Economy and Society, 53.
- 12.
For a brief history of the concept of authority see: Sennett, Authority.
- 13.
Wollstonecraft , “Vindication of the Rights of Woman,” 80.
- 14.
Hanrahan and Antony , “Because I Said So,” 59.
- 15.
See Milan Women’s Bookstore Collective, Sexual Difference; and Cavarero , “The Need for a Sexed Thought.”
- 16.
Stelliferi , Il femminismo a Roma.
- 17.
Irigaray , This Sex Which Is Not One, 81.
- 18.
For a reconstruction of the practices of entrustment see: Scarparo , “In the Name of the Mother.”
- 19.
Muraro , “La politica è la politica delle donne,” 2.
- 20.
Buttarelli , “Fare autorità, disfare potere,” 87.
- 21.
Putino , Amiche mie isteriche.
- 22.
Butler, The Psychic Life of Power, 2.
- 23.
Young , Throwing Like a Girl, 143.
- 24.
Ibid.
- 25.
Tiqqun, Raw Materials.
- 26.
Foucault, The Birth of Biopolitics.
- 27.
Tiqqun, Raw Materials, 67.
- 28.
Ibid., 96.
- 29.
McRobbie , The Aftermath of Feminism.
- 30.
See Pleyers , “Engagement et relation.”
- 31.
See Players, “Engagement et relation.”
- 32.
See McRobbie, The Aftermath of Feminism.
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Mainardi, A., Cossutta, C. (2020). Negotiating Authority Through Feminism: Girls’ Political Experience in Italian Social Movements. In: Bardazzi, A., Bazzoni, A. (eds) Gender and Authority across Disciplines, Space and Time. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-45160-8_3
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